D&D 5E Psionics in Tasha

[Eric V]

Why even argue with Mini, man. Not a single thing he has said has basis in any fact.

Throughout the game, there is language like "spells or magical effects." Magical effects means their magic. The dragon's breath weapon is considered magical. Crawford has said this before in one of the youtube videos before, though I can't recall which one atm. Without a doubt, not a thing Mini has said holds even an ounce of validity in regards to this discussion because it is the definition of fake news.

???!!

He's sourcing from the PHB. He's literally using the text from the main book.

 

[Ovinomancer]

???!!

He's sourcing from the PHB. He's literally using the text from the main book.

He is? The main book doesn't talk about interfaces at all, except in the sidebar where it provides some flavor about the weave, which @Minigiant has expressly said he's not talking about. Maybe you have a better handle on Mini's argument than I do, in which case, please explain it to me. I admit I'm not entirely sure I've followed Mini's argument.

 

[Eric V]

It's probably wiser to let him do it; I don't want to put words in his mouth.

IF I have understood him correctly, he's saying all classes use an interface to use magic. The scroll-writing ability of wizards is a mechanical manifestation of this (in that they can transcribe priest spells into their spellbooks if the spell is also on the ever-growing wizard spell list). For myself, I see the interface in the exact same use of material components for spells, regardless of power source (for lack of a better term); the example I gave earlier is the cleric through faith, the druid through connection to nature, the paladin through devotion, the monk through meditation, the sorcerer through innate power, and the wizard through study...all need the same straight piece of iron to cast hold person. Why should nature demand the use of iron? Your god? How does the iron work with your devotion? Who knows? But it's required.

Now, do most people handwave material components? It seems so. Do most people not bother explaining the interface (though it's right there on page 205 "Instead, they make use of a fabric of magic, a kind of interface between the will of the spellcaster and the raw stuff of magic.")? It seems so as well.

To say it's not in the rules though...no. It is. Even if it's a commonly ignored rule.

I may not be doing his argument justice, however.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It's probably wiser to let him do it; I don't want to put words in his mouth.

IF I have understood him correctly, he's saying all classes use an interface to use magic. The scroll-writing ability of wizards is a mechanical manifestation of this (in that they can transcribe priest spells into their spellbooks if the spell is also on the ever-growing wizard spell list). For myself, I see the interface in the exact same use of material components for spells, regardless of power source (for lack of a better term); the example I gave earlier is the cleric through faith, the druid through connection to nature, the paladin through devotion, the monk through meditation, the sorcerer through innate power, and the wizard through study...all need the same straight piece of iron to cast hold person. Why should nature demand the use of iron? Your god? How does the iron work with your devotion? Who knows? But it's required.

Now, do most people handwave material components? It seems so. Do most people not bother explaining the interface (though it's right there on page 205 "Instead, they make use of a fabric of magic, a kind of interface between the will of the spellcaster and the raw stuff of magic.")? It seems so as well.

To say it's not in the rules though...no. It is. Even if it's a commonly ignored rule.

I may not be doing his argument justice, however.

I don't understand this bit of calling a game rule an "interface." This really reads like attaching a specific bit of fluff to a game rule and then saying, "see, you can't use this game rule for this other thing, it has different fluff!" It's begging the question -- you've assumed something in your premise that proves your conclusion. I don't see how you effectively defend the premise -- there's no need to have fixed fluff to enable game rules, if anything, game rules limit the available fluff, not the other way around. You can easily use spell slots for psionics and just explain it differently with exactly the same mechanics. Insisting otherwise -- that spell slots, for instance, can only be associated with a non-psionics-compatible fluff explanation -- is making an unsupportable claim. Not unsupportable in that you can create such fluff, but unsupportable in claiming that this prevents any other options. It doesn't.

 

[Minigiant]

Why even argue with Mini, man. Not a single thing he has said has basis in any fact.

Throughout the game, there is language like "spells or magical effects." Magical effects means their magic. The dragon's breath weapon is considered magical. Crawford has said this before in one of the youtube videos before, though I can't recall which one atm. Without a doubt, not a thing Mini has said holds even an ounce of validity in regards to this discussion because it is the definition of fake news.

Spells and magic are different terms.

Spells are a type of magic.
Psionics are a type of magic.
Ki is a type of magic.

Historically, they were 3 different types of magic.

 

[Eric V]

I don't understand this bit of calling a game rule an "interface." This really reads like attaching a specific bit of fluff to a game rule and then saying, "see, you can't use this game rule for this other thing, it has different fluff!" It's begging the question -- you've assumed something in your premise that proves your conclusion. I don't see how you effectively defend the premise -- there's no need to have fixed fluff to enable game rules, if anything, game rules limit the available fluff, not the other way around. You can easily use spell slots for psionics and just explain it differently with exactly the same mechanics. Insisting otherwise -- that spell slots, for instance, can only be associated with a non-psionics-compatible fluff explanation -- is making an unsupportable claim. Not unsupportable in that you can create such fluff, but unsupportable in claiming that this prevents any other options. It doesn't.

"Interface" is the term used in the PHB. The fluff is the different names for the interface, and they mention that in different places they refer to it as different things (they specifically call out the Weave for FR), but the interface itself is part of the official description of magic in the PHB. No one is assuming anything, it literally reads in the PHB that spellcasters can't manifest magical effects without this interface (again, p. 205).

Is it easily ignored? Sure. From what I can tell, most people do. I am assuming, though, that an official WotC product follows the official rule about magic; so psionics no longer being a separate thing but instead being magic means psions (but really, sorcerers) need to use the same interface to cast their spells.

They'd need the same V,S,M components too, unless they took a feat.

 

[Ovinomancer]

"Interface" is the term used in the PHB. The fluff is the different names for the interface, and they mention that in different places they refer to it as different things (they specifically call out the Weave for FR), but the interface itself is part of the official description of magic in the PHB. No one is assuming anything, it literally reads in the PHB that spellcasters can't manifest magical effects without this interface (again, p. 205).

Is it easily ignored? Sure. From what I can tell, most people do. I am assuming, though, that an official WotC product follows the official rule about magic; so psionics no longer being a separate thing but instead being magic means psions (but really, sorcerers) need to use the same interface to cast their spells.

They'd need the same V,S,M components too, unless they took a feat.

The PHB talks about an "interface" in exactly one place, where it says that the interface is the weave. So, unless you're claiming that the weave is what is RAW, there's nothing about any other "interface" to talk about. Since this is already an rejected position -- you've just claimed other things can be the "interface" -- then the argument that "interface" is a required and RAW description of how magic works is also already rejected. You cannot pick part of a thing and say it's the whole thing. The "interface" in the PHB is the weave. If you do something other than the weave, you're already outside that explanation. If you allow for other things, you're outside that explanation. This "interface" is specific to the weave, as it's described as a thing between raw magic and practitioners that allow practitioners to control the otherwise nearly impossible to control raw magic. That's it. If you swap in something else, you don't get to insist that the "interface" part remains and is required -- the "interface" is inseverable from the weave description. You cannot have it both ways.

And, this is accepting arguendo that the description of the weave is RAW rather than flavor. I do not agree this is so, because the weave doesn't impact any game rules. And, you've also already agreed that it can be changed and a different flavor added.

What I think you intend to mean by "interface" is just whatever explanation for how magic works in a given setting. But that answer could simply be "it just does" at which point there's no "interface" there.

 

[Maxperson]

Is it easily ignored? Sure. From what I can tell, most people do. I am assuming, though, that an official WotC product follows the official rule about magic; so psionics no longer being a separate thing but instead being magic means psions (but really, sorcerers) need to use the same interface to cast their spells.

They'd need the same V,S,M components too, unless they took a feat.

Not exactly. Specific beats general is a thing in 5e and we know from the Monster books and UA that WotC views psionics as a specific exception to that general rule.

 

[bulletmeat]

Anyone got a cool name for a Psionic Martial class beyond Psion?

Grey-Splatter.

 

[EscherEnigma]

When I saw the UA with the Mystic, I rolled my eyes and thought "so what, now we're going to update all the psionics monsters already published?"

IIRC, when they published the 3.X psionics handbooks, they did exactly that, saying the GM can use the MM version of the monster or the new updated version that uses the new psionics rules, per their preference. So it wouldn't be unprecedented or confusing. The contrary, it would be both precedented and make perfect sense.

To the overall thread...

I suspect that the psionics we see in Tashas will be exactly what the UA would lead us to expect: psionic sub-classes for existing classes to augment their abilities with psionics, but no psionic main class. I think this works well enough for the "soul knife" and "psyhic warrior", but I do hope they create a pure "psion" class at some point (maybe in a Dark Sun campaign book, like they did with Artificer in Eberron?).

So while you'll be able to get closer to a psion with a psionic-themed sorcerer (with a bunch more psychi-flavored spells), I don't think that's where it'll end.